NFL tries to avoid Hill hearings

The league is hoping to block a full-scale congressional investigation. | Reuters

“We have been clear in our belief that HGH testing is necessary — we’ve been clear about that for several years,” said Adolpho Birch, the NFL’s senior vice president of labor policy and government affairs.

“We understand that the committee has an interest and we are making every effort to cooperate with them,” he added. But “hearings are not something that should be taken lightly by anyone.”

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George Atallah, the NFLPA’s assistant executive director of external affairs, said the union doesn’t mind Congress’s interest or oversight.

“From our perspective, we’re more than happy to have Congress involved on the broader health and safety topics,” Atallah said, adding the union will wait as long as it takes to get a fair testing protocol in place for its players.

“We have never put a timetable on getting a testing protocol that is fair and just,” Atallah said.

The ongoing Internal Revenue Service scandal involving scrutiny of conservative nonprofit groups isn’t helping the league avoid the congressional spotlight. NFL franchises pay taxes, but the league itself — along with the National Hockey League and the Professional Golfers Association — is classified a nonprofit trade association.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) introduced an amendment to the Internet sales tax bill in April that would have stripped sports leagues of their tax-exempt status. Members of Congress in the past have also used the nonprofit issue as a way to poke the NFL.

Coburn has vowed to try again — perhaps as part of a broader tax reform package.

“It’s an issue he’s going to continue to push and advocate for,” said Coburn spokesman John Hart. “What he’s trying to do is raise the issue and frankly educate the public about the ridiculousness of the Tax Code.”

The NFL is the hub of America’s most popular sport with TV contracts worth billions of dollars, teams valued at hundreds of millions of dollars and players making millions of dollars.

So like any other big business that faces the possibility of congressional scrutiny, both the league and the players union have powerful K Street firms at work on Capitol Hill: The league has spent over $1 million per year on lobbying and has almost two dozen people on retainer at big-time firms including Covington & Burling, Elmendorf Ryan, Gephardt Government Affairs and John Dudinsky & Associates.

The NFLPA has lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs on retainer — and its current executive director, DeMaurice